Why Karen Carpenter Matters

Karen Tongson is the author of Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV that Soothes Us and Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries. She is professor of gender and sexuality studies, English, and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. She co-hosts the podcasts The Art of Grief and The Gaymazing Race, and her writing has appeared in Slate, NPR Music and The Los Angeles Review of Books among other venues.

• Preface1. Whiteness and Promises2. For All We Know3. Long Beach State of Mind4. Goodbye to Love5. Queer Horizon6. Made in America: Karen Carpenters of the Philippines7. NowAcknowledgmentsNotes

This is a text to be admired; it is intricate, ambitious and persuasive. Tongson revels in the complexity of her subject, showing how popular music artists nurture their fans to transcend cultural and political divides. It is a humbling experience to be granted access to the dialogue Tongson initiates with Karen, and it is one that reaches beyond the personal to reflect upon the centrality of popular music artists in the formation of individual and collective identities. (Popular Music History) [Tongson] packs nostalgic affection and astute critical thinking about Karen Carpenter, her namesake, into this slim volume. (Los Angeles Times) Why Karen Carpenter Matters is about the kind of chart-topping suburban pop that lies at the core of white capitalist mythology—sunny and sentimental, meticulously calibrated for Nixon-era FM radio. But the book centers those at the margins of American society, revealing how the Carpenters' music resonated with immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and people of color who craved the idyllic normalcy that the siblings embodied...In this exploration of her namesake's legacy, [Tongson] deftly weaves memoir, history, and cultural criticism to highlight the dynamic relationship between artists and listeners—all the while avoiding the militant 'yasss girl' identity politics that have come to define modern fandom. (Pitchfork, "Best Music Books of 2019") [Why Karen Carpenter Matters] expands on the sphere of Carpenter’s influence, centering the queer and other marginalized people who found truth in her work. It’s a touching detail in this memoir-biography hybrid that the author was named after the singer. (Book Riot, "10 Terrific Nonfiction Books About Music") Engrossing…An enthusiastic and persuasive Carpenters fan, Tongson is also a stellar critic with extensive knowledge of music and songcraft, here displayed with gusto in enthralling close reads…the music writing is superb-jaunty, eloquent, and illuminating. (4Columns) Half memoir, half biography of 20th-century pop icon Carpenter, [Why Karen Carpenter Matters is a] smart take on a genius woman whose memory is all too often reduced to just the tragic parts. (Austin American Statesman) Stunning…even if you're a fan of the Carpenters…I guarantee that you will explore new angles on the Carpenters with Why Karen Carpenter Matters. - Dana Stevens (Slate Culture Gabfest) A fascinating exploration of the meanings of 1970s pop icon Karen Carpenter and her work, Why Karen Carpenter Matters, will take many readers by surprise . . . it is personal, but the directions and risks the book takes make the angles that much more surprising. . . This is an unusually illuminating personal analysis of a music artist. (Pop Matters) Tongson writes the book as part personal memoir part biography, weaving a story that reveals the intent and effects of the late musician's short life. (Alcalde) Karen Tongson queers her namesake in Why Karen Carpenter Matters, which is another way to say it’s a book of questions. Why does that singular voice, originally directed to conservative white listeners in the 1970s, have such meaning for brown, Black, and LGBTQ+ communities today?...In this loving book, Karen’s significance to the writer is never easy, never without complexity. (Electric Literature) In owning and celebrating her own Carpenters fandom-as a queer Filipino-American woman-Tongson opens up new room for nuance on both the production and reception sides of popular music. (The Current) An offbeat, affectionate and provocative meditation about the many 'afterlives' of Karen Carpenter. (Please Kill Me) Tongson deftly connects her own stories with larger narratives about the Carpenters and Karen Carpenter, for an excellent part-memoir, part-examination of the singer and her legacy…[a] unique take on Carpenter's importance that illuminates the beautifully transcendent connection that an audience can have with an artist. (Exclaim!) Provocative but affectionate. (The Sunday Republican) There is much to ponder in this engaging volume…For those seeking an intriguing meditation on the complexities of culture and the deep impact and unifying influence of music and its performers. (Library Journal) There's nostalgia and empathy you feel [in Why Karen Carpenter Matters] and you can't help but play some of the Carpenters' greatest hits in the background. (Asian Journal) Tongson is an excellent biographer and an eye-opening music critic. (Razorcake) [Tongson] provides a tightly crafted narrative that's a respectful, reverential, and realistic representation of the [The Carpenter's] place in musical history…In what proves to be the driving thesis of the book, Tongson lets Karen be Karen. (Bearded Gentlemen Music) Tongson weaves Carpenter's own-sometimes reluctant-rise to stardom with her own journey from the Philippines to Southern California, probing Carpenter's enduring legacy in the Philippines and in the US, while offering a brilliant reflection on the meaning of the Carpenters' music for her and other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and others outside the mainstream culture. (No Depression) In Tongson's pressing book, Karen does not belong to Richard or her parents or white middle-class suburbia, but to Filipino and queer bodies giving new life to Karen's voice. Tongson's contribution offers a way forward for personal writing in music criticism, asking who music belongs to and suggesting that certain appropriations can be quite liberative. (Athenaeum Review) Tongson explores some unexpected avenues of the Carpenters' story, showing through her personal experience how Karen and Richard can speak to a multicultural and queer audience…It is a powerful metaphor about the need to be honest about who you truly are. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Highminded without feeling academic, Why Karen Carpenter Matters is filled with sentences that have a music of their own…Tongson's take on a misunderstood artist will resonate with readers who have never even heard of Karen Carpenter. (Literary Hub) [A] strikingly inventive book…provocative in all the best ways…With [Why Karen Carpenter Matters], Tongson reminds us of how thrilling it can be to recontextualize a cultural actor who is so familiar to us that it has become hard to see (or, in this case, hear) her in ways that transcend cliché. (Nursing Clio) Why Karen Carpenter Matters casts a renewed light on how to understand celebrities and the enduring prominence and relevance of their artistic legacies beyond Euro-American contexts...Interweaving memoir with social history, musical analysis, and queer and cultural theory, this revelatory read meditates on the allure of Carpenter and her beguiling lyrics within Tongson's own private life as a middle-class, queer, and immigrant Filipino in the US...The human will to affirm creativity, agency, and connectedness is the insight that Why Karen Carpenter Matters ultimately keys its readers into, now and once again. (Public Books) This is a formidable, deeply personal, yet accessible work of cultural criticism that puts a famous woman in a new perspective, contextualises the culture and industry that helped construct her, and complicates normative assumptions about who inherits and extends her legacy. Listen closely. (Celebrity Studies) Why Karen Carpenter Matters offers a rich history of Karen Carpenter's life and legacy...Tongson's project productively queers the history of Karen Carpenter...Through Tongson's vivid detail and strong narratives throughout the book, I closed the back cover feeling close to both her and Karen Carpenter. I saw my own narrative of queerness and gender performance reflected in Carpenter's life. (QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking)